GRAND RAPIDS -- Nuclear power plants aren't merely a national issue, but should be part of a backyard debate on clean power and its ramifications, according to a local panel.

The Institute for Global Education on Thursday sponsored a discussion on the merits and threats of nuclear-generated power in hopes of bringing home the issue. Michigan has three nuclear power plants, including the Palisades plant near South Haven, which has been shut down three times since 2008 and is on a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission list of plants requiring additional oversight.

The 70-mile distance to South Haven where the plant is located is too close for Corinne Carey, an anti-nuclear activist with a group called Don't Waste Michigan, who was part of the panel Thursday with two officials from the NRC. About 25 people attended.

Carey took issue with characterizations NRC officials made that the chances of a nuclear disaster were one in a million each year, adding she believes the NRC is far too cozy with the industry it regulates.

"Far too often, the industry gets what it wants and, when it comes to violations, it takes so very long for them to be processed," Carey said. "Many of these plants are getting extensions to operate far beyond the number of years for which they were engineered to operate."

John Ellegood, the NRC's senior resident inspector at the Palisades plant, assured those attending that nuclear plant operators are required by law and do report their own violations, such as the ones that prompted the trio of closures at the Palisades plant.

"I'm there every day," Ellegood said. "I interact with the operators every day. We don't just trust what they say. Our motto is 'trust but verify.'"

Ellegood conceded aging plants are a concern, especially the buried tangle of cooling pipes beneath plants which are nearly impossible to access. He said securing the storage of spent nuclear fuel rods is among the agency's biggest concerns, noting the nation's nuclear power plants originally were designed to move spent fuel rods off-site to a national repository that has been stalled by political concerns, forcing the nation's nuclear plants to store spent fuel on site.

"The biggest risk is probably security, but fuel is stored in these big, tough casks that are designed to withstand impact," Ellegood said. "Right now, there's probably enough capacity to store spent fuel for 100 years until it has to be reconfigured."

Storing spent fuel was the issue of most concern for Bonnie Miller, of Grand Rapids, who said spent nuclear fuel has a half life of 4.5 billion years.

Richard Machado, also of Grand Rapids, noted nuclear power has resulted in far fewer deaths than coal-fueled plants, the emissions from which have been blamed for a range of respiratory illnesses.